Your business needs a marketing plan to narrow your target audience and guide all of your marketing efforts. A high-level marketing plan is one method of documenting your general marketing strategies for the company. This broad plan for your marketing efforts creates the top level of the plan, with additional specific marketing methods underneath.

Purpose

The purpose of the high-level plan is to break down your marketing goals and strategies into subcategories. The plan includes the high-level goals or categories where you will focus your energy. You then drill down further for each high-level goal to develop your plan. By using a high-level marketing plan, you put into words exactly how you want to go about advertising and getting the word out about the company. For example, you might want to increase brand awareness for your products as part of your high-level marketing plan. Once this is established, you can decide exactly how you plan to achieve brand awareness.

Components

A marketing plan generally begins with an executive summary, which briefly states the major points in the plan. The situation analysis describes the needs and happenings within your business and with your customers to determine what should go into the high-level marketing plan. A SWOT analysis helps you further narrow the options for your marketing plan by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as seen from the customer's point of view. The objectives or goals section is where you list your specific plans. You also need an action section that describes what steps need to occur to achieve your goals. You also need a section in the marketing plan that covers control. This outlines how the marketing strategies are monitored and changed as needed to be successful.

Goals

The goals or objectives you include in the high-level marketing plan generally cover the next year or more. You want to include goals that push the company toward growth while still being attainable. For example, if your sales generated from marketing campaigns were $100,000 last year, setting a goal to sell $900,000 this year is likely unrealistic. You want to push your goals beyond the $100,000 mark to encourage growth but still make it attainable so the plan doesn't feel like a failure. Goals in a high-level marketing plan might include improving brand recognition, establishing a social media presence, increasing sales based on a particular marketing campaign, increasing your client base and expanding your company's reach.

Additional Detail

Once the high-level marketing objectives are in place and you've researched their feasibility, you can break the objectives down into further detail. This involves creating specific action steps and activities that will help you achieve the higher-level goals. For example, if one of your high-level goals is to establish a social media presence, the steps to get there might include customizing a Facebook page for your business, adding a blog to your website, increasing your followers and interacting with followers on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.